Mr Winter
by youknowitsmsrae
Summary: Rapunzel took some time off to do some soul searching that doesn't end too well on her part. Jack offers to look for her. What he finds wasn't what he expected.


**MR. WINTER  
youknowitsmsrae**

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_**A/N: Hi guys! Just another one-shot for those Jackunzel lovers, written for wont-regret-it on tumblr who won the bonus question for the OOC Post of the Evening.**_

_**TTK: Rapunzel is a Guardian.**_

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**MR. WINTER**

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"You're a _very_ hard person to track down, Tangles, especially if you seemingly don't want to be found."

Jack Frost leisurely leaned against the closed side of the stain glass window frame, arms crossed over his chest, staff tucked under his hand. He was a bit uncomfortable in the warm light of the sun - it _was_ summertime, after all, and D.C. wasn't covered in layers of ice like other parts of the world. There wasn't even a breeze. But he wasn't going to complain now; he _had_ offered to look for her; and it only took him a couple days to find the golden haired Guardian who'd just been...gone.

And now here she was, criss-crossed on the floor of a Records Room in Washington, surrounded by piles and piles of books.

She hadn't jumped from her spot at his voice - she'd known one of these hours someone would begin to worry and start the search for the Guardian of Creativity.

Then again, she wasn't ready to get up and leave now. She still had 7 books to read.

"What do you want, Mr. Winter?" She exhaled loudly, closing the book on her lap to peek at him from over her shoulder. But he wasn't there now, and instead, leaned against the bookshelf in front of her, a gentle smirked laced across his cheeks. She internally groaned - he moved _very _fast, and all she'd seen for 72 hours had been the splatter of ink and the shadows as the Sun and Moon changed in the sky. Sleeping wasn't compatible. Just reading. But she didn't show her slight annoyance in an expression; in fact, she was like a blank page.

"Hey there, claws away, Princess." He chuckled under his breath, using his staff to poke around at a big pile of Encyclopedias that almost tipped like Jenga blocks when touched. She was _clearly _not amused at that one, as her eyes and face darkened. He put his hands up. "Why are we on Spirit-Name basis, huh?"

By now he was standing in front of her, alas, she was paying him no mind. Instead, her eyes were skimming the book pages again, sucked right back into a strange lone passage she'd been exhibiting beforehand. It was like he hadn't even shown up; Rapunzel was gone, and this silent shell was there instead.

The white-haired Guardian took a moment to watch her as he crouched beside curiously. Her actions and reactions, what she was expressing through her slightly-off breath, what she was wearing, her posture. She was troubled by something, clearly; he could hear it by the sound of her thumping heartbeat drumming at a faster pace in her rib cage. There was a small bead of sweat on her forehead. She'd changed from her normally silk dress into something much more modern - a t-shirt and floral patterned jeans (even if she still was barefoot). She was hunched over, hair braided down to the floor and lying over a hefty pile of novels.

"Listen," He began, reaching out a hesitant hand to place on her shoulder. The cold contact of skin could have shocked her; she moved away from his touch, body defensive, eyes apologetic, "everyone is worried about you, okay?"

Her mood didn't change.

"I'll even throw my name into that batch." He joked weakly. She snorted a little, face turning back to her book. "You're not...exploding in joy lately, and it's -"

"Irregular for my normal behavioral patterns?" He opened his mouth to say something, but she spoke again before he got anything out. "Crazy?" He shook his head, still attempting to form words, but she went on, voice like a robot.

_She_ was like a robot as she gazed down at the ginormous book in her hands. The cover was a dark, woven leather, unlike her small, soft fingers.

"Crazy?" A pause. "June 29th. Ha. Crazy." She was twiddling her fingers in a lock of hair by her side now. Every time she twitched her joints, she let it get tighter and tighter until it actually kind of hurt. Jack turned his head in confusion to look at the big calender on the wall - June 29th was 3 days ago, when she'd gone missing_._

_What_ was going on with his, their, Tangles?

"''She's crazy!', they cried, and took towards the castle at full speed. She wasn't sure what to do or how to calm her people down.'" Rapunzel released her fingers from her hair, instead, wrapping her arms around the book she snapped shut. Her knuckles turned white, and she was unseeing of him or anything around her as she spoke. She was repeating a quote from something, most likely, what was strangled in her grip. "'The Princess was frightened and there was no one there to help when her own parents locked her away for the second time in her life. They say she jumped, but other speculate -'"

"Rapunzel." He lightly grabbed her chin, and her words muffled down into silence. She blinked twice and looked up slowly.

"I'm not crazy." She tilt her chin up a little proudly in his light hold, and he let her go, fingers back at his side. "It's just a bad day. Bad memories. Bad day. Every year." She scratched behind her ear, a suddenly hot feeling growing in her cheeks and neck. She'd just rambled. She was rambling. She was _rambling. _How embarrassing. Mother always hated the mumbling. "Why do you think I was chosen, Jack?"

He was taken aback for a moment, but when it came time for him to speak, he was confident.

"I thought we'd figured this one out? You're a creative soul, Tangles. You're special."

She nodded slowly.

"Special. Not crazy."

He nodded once as well.

"Absolutely not," He grabbed her hands, standing her next to him. Her muscles protested, and she almost tripped as they gave, but he was a steady block and wall for her to lean against, "crazy." He murmured in her ear softly, breath ice upon the side of her face. She blushed a little darker when he didn't let her go, but instead, had his arms around her in a tight, warm hug, despite the fact that he _was _Mr. Winter, and was frosty to the touch. She didn't even realize she'd relaxed until her exhaustion almost tripped her again. She apologized when they pulled apart. He brushed some of the hair from her eyes.

"To be honest," his fingers rest on her shoulders, "your kingdom was way off the line. You're perfect the way you are." Leaning in gently, he kissed her forehead in support, then tucked his hands in his hoodie pocket, rocking back and forth on his heels once. "We're all waiting for you to come back, okay? Take your time. Just...not _too _much."

And then he was gone, and she was all alone again.

But this time, she didn't cry. She didn't try to pray to the Man in the Moon to tell her who'd murdered her, or why things had to happen the way they did. She didn't dwell on her past or her mistakes, but now, as she gathered up one tiny little novel under her arm and tucked it in an all too familiar satchel, she took a big breath in.

How long she would have been there if Jack, or anyone, hadn't come to get her, was never to be known. But he'd been a Guardian, for just a moment, her Guardian, and that was all she needed to know that she wasn't alone in this anymore. This wasn't the tower or her Kingdom - these were her friends and it was time she lived up to her duty.

With a small grin, she wrapped her fingers in the end of her hair, gazed at the warm sun in the sky, and turned into a vibrant light, vanishing.


End file.
